Indigo Girls' Amy Ray to Release Country Album

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Amy Ray is going country, for an album! But it's not really a stretch.

Ray, half of Grammy-winning songwriting folk-rock duo the Indigo Girls, has always been a little bit country, a little bit rock and roll. But her upcoming solo release, Goodnight Tender, on Ray's own Decatur-based imprint, Daemon Records, will be a career first for Ray, as it's a pure country music album.

Recorded last spring at Echo Mountain Studio in Asheville, N.C. with guests Justin Vernon, Heather McEntire (Mt. Moriah, Merge Records), members of Megafaun and vocal appearances by Kelly Hogan and Susan Tedeschi, this collection of 11 originals by Ray, along with a cover penned by McEntire, is scheduled for release on January 28, 2014 on Daemon Records.

Goodnight Tender marks a dramatic departure from Ray's previous work, both as a solo artist and an Indigo Girl. Along with a group of trusted artists and collaborators, Ray's sessions included fiddle, banjo, dobro, pedal steel, guitar, mandolin, bass, and drums gathered 'round a few microphones to create an authentic, vintage sound.

"I love to scream and growl, but I also love the soft, sweet singing of artists like George Jones," Ray says, "so I slowed the tempo, got into a lower register, and let the songs and the musicians around me dictate a different direction." What she strove for instead was the rush of pure feeling.

"I wanted recordings I didn't have to mess with too much," she says. "So these songs are more visceral than intellectual, with a strong, wistful sense of setting that enables you to sense the creek and the dirt as well as the unrequited love. I wanted a record that sounds good and feels right when you're driving down a rural road."